


To Make Ends Meet

by erintaper



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Anxiety, BAMF Pepper Potts, Hurt/Comfort, Pepper Potts Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Precious Peter Parker, Protective Tony Stark, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:02:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 20,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27773482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erintaper/pseuds/erintaper
Summary: Peter knows his aunt is in need of money to make ends meet. So without her knowing, he picks up an after school job at Stark Industries as a high-rise window cleaner that paid $20 an hour. Luckily because of his late night excursions as Spiderman, he's not afraid of heights at all.
Relationships: May Parker (Spider-Man) & Peter Parker, Michelle Jones & Ned Leeds & Peter Parker, Michelle Jones/Peter Parker, Ned Leeds & Peter Parker, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Pepper Potts, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 122
Kudos: 611





	1. Chapter 1

Peter was aware things weren't going to great with his Aunt. The economy was strained and the hospital she works at was forced to make budget cuts and the nursing department was impacted the worst. She never relayed it to Peter, but he always grabs the mail in the lobby of their apartment and saw the drastic change in her paycheck. Despite all that May Parker continued to try and preserve normalcy.

"I'm going to be taking more night shifts at the hospital" she said over their take-out for dinner.

"Oh, why?" Peter asked pretending to be oblivious to the situation.

"The hospital needs more help, especially with fall coming flu season is on the rise. So they need more hands on deck" she replied coolly and Peter nods.

"Okay. I'll just make dinner for myself. Can I still have Ned over when you're not home?" he asked.

"Of course. Just don't do anything silly okay?" she said and stared at him. He stared down at his plate and stuffed his face. His aunt still didn't know about his late night excursions as Spider-man. Usually she thought he was at Ned's house or they were hanging out.

"Yeah, of course. I mean not much can go wrong if we just build Legos all day"

"True" she said and grabbed the styrofoam box full of pad thai.

"Well unless we swallowed one"

"Peter ..."

"Do you think it'd like go through all the way, or would our body recognize something's wrong when we eat it?"

"Well most times it'll just come out the other end. But if it gets stuck somewhere it can cause issues"

"That's so cool, so I could swallow Darth Vader and in about 6 hours I'll be greeted -"

"Peter I'm eating, save the thought for later" she said exasperatedly and Peter just grinned and continued to eat his food.

But, deep in his mind he was thinking of a different plan.

As soon as he entered his room he booted up his computer and opened online job boards. He scrolled through different postings, from cashier, barista, construction worker. He created a new spreadsheet and began listing the most viable options. The issue that kept arising, he's still 15 and most jobs only accepted people 16 years of age. His birthday was in a few months in November, but Peter knew he couldn't wait that long.

Option 1, he just apply as 15 and hope for the best. Maybe someone could slide his pay under the table. However, that meant he'll probably get paid below minimum wage.

Option 2, he apply as 16 years of age. He was seriously considering it, until he began filing a job posting and realized they required a letter of approval from his school. Upon further research his school would also check that he worked under a certain number of hours and it mustn't interfere with his schoolwork. There was too much paperwork and Peter wasn't comfortable forging that much.

Option 3, he apply as over 18. He'd have to fake IDs and paperwork, but he'd have complete freedom of choosing where and when he could work. He knew he was smart enough to apply for internships, but his age wouldn't legally let him.

He scrolls through different internship and job options. But, then he hits a post that seems too good to be true. It was for window cleaning at Stark Industries. Only a few people had applied according to the page, but who could blame them. The job required scaling down the side of a high rise thousands of feet in the area, which is out of the question for most people. But, as a part-time vigilante who scaled high rises for fun, Peter was pretty excited about it.

The job was started at 4 pm which is near the end of the corporate working day and ended at 8 pm, just before it got dark. Age requirement was 18, but they never asked for any paperwork. Training was included and even better it paid $20 an hour.

It only took about half an hour to create a resume, forge some documents and submit the paperwork. An hour later as Peter was soaring through Queens taking care of small crime, he felt his phone buzz in his pocket. There was a new email asking when was the soonest he could come in to work and he was elated. He whooped and jumped off the high rise he was on, doing a few flips in the air before shooting a web and landing gracefully on the opposite building. Things were definitely looking up.

\---

After school the next day and exchanging his handshake with Ned, Peter hopped onto the subway to head to downtown Manhattan. Sure Spidermanning would've been faster, but he'd never actually swung across the Queensborough Bridge before. Plus he wanted to save the webbing he had for his patrols tonight and going to Manhattan and back would've used up all his supply. So he crowded onto the train like a normal citizen and kept himself occupied with music and homework the entire 50 minute ride.

His aunt texted him, saying she would be at work until the next morning and he texted back a plethora of emojis. Looks like he was in the clear.

The subway stopped at Grand Central Terminal and he quickly exited the platform and headed towards the upper ground. He didn't visit Manhattan that often and took his time to look around. As soon as he was on the streets, he saw the towering Avengers Tower and felt his heart race. This was it. He quickly checked his appearance in the mirror and messed with his hair. He mentally gave himself a pat on the back for not wearing a nerdy science shirt today. He couldn't risk looking like a high schooler.

At the entrance, a security guard raised his eyebrow at him and Peter hesitated. He definitely didn't fit the attire of the rest of the workers, who were in suits and expensive clothing.

"What are you here for?" the guard asked crossing his arms slightly.

"Um ... I'm here for a job interview" Peter replied, willing himself not to stutter or feel intimidated.

"Oh, Macy can help you with that at the front desk" he replied, and held the swinging door open for him. Peter thanked the man and quickly rushed inside.

The lady at the desk with the name tag Macy looked up at Peter as he approached her and she held her finger up as she talked to someone on the phone.

"I understand sir, I can't answer that question, but I can relay you to the Managerial Department where someone can help you there ... Awesome ... Perfect, alright have a good day" she put the phone back in its holder and looked up with a bright smile, "Hey there, how can I help you?"

"Oh yeah, um I'm here for a new job" he said and she nodded her head.

"What your name?"

"Uh Peter Parker" he replied and wrung his hands. His anxiety was peaking and he nervously began wondering if she would figure out his scheme. He was currently contemplating the number of different ways he could make a quick exit of the building if he needed to when she interrupted his thoughts.

"Yes. I found you in our database. It says here to go to Floor 82, room 18 which should be towards the back. Let me get you a guest badge" she replied and opened a cluttered drawer and began sifting through its contents. Finally she pulled out a blank white ID and handed it to Peter.

"Please ensure you only go on the floors you're required to. But, our AI won't allow you to enter areas you're not supposed to go. If you do enter a restricted area our security will be notified. Is there anything else I can help you with?"

"Oh no, thank you very much" Peter said. He seriously hoped this AI wasn't smart enough to notice that he was a 15 year old.

"No problem, the elevators are to the right." He nods and scurries over to a group of employees waiting to enter the elevator doors. They glane at him briefly but look back at their phones. Inside the elevator most people got off on floors 20 - 30 and the last person left at floor 53. Then Peter was alone the rest of the ride. Albeit, it wasn't that long. The elevators were really fast and the entire ride lasted about 35 seconds.

As soon as he was let off on the 82 floor, he walked in and it was eerily quiet. Most of the doors were labelled as storage, but the last room had a light on inside. He walked to it, saw it was labelled #18 and gave it a knock. There was some rustling and a older woman opened the door.

"Oh you must be Peter" she said, looking him up and down and he nodded," Nice to meet you I'm Patty. I handle the janitorial staff here. Come on in"

Peter entered the door and found the area was filled with lockers along with chairs, tables and couches for lounging.

"Alright. I just have a few questions about your experience. First of all are you scared of heights?"

"No, I actually quite like them" Peter replied and Patty snorted.

"Good, I suppose you have to like them with this type of job. Any rock climbing, or any sort of climbing experience?"

"Yeah, a decent amount. But I don't know anything about ropes"

Patty nodded and moved to a cabinet," That's alright. It isn't too hard. The guys will teach you about it. We have a main man who focuses just on harness safety, because leadership's not too keen on employees getting hurt". She pulls a few supplies and a badge out from the cabinet and hands them to Peter.

"This will be your work uniform, and this is your badge. Do not under and circumstances loose it. Especially with your position, you're allowed to reach the top levels of the building which are under high security clearance. I wouldn't think of doing anything funny. The AI in this building will know immediately"

Peter nods and swallows. Again, this AI must be insanely high tech.

"Okay, starting next Monday you'll begin training with Charlie right at 4:30. He'll get you through the basics in about a week. The following week is the monthly window clean which takes around two weeks to complete. We only clean the entire building every 2 and a half months. But, certain areas of the building require it to be done more frequently than others. The medical bay must be done every week, in addition to the Stark's penthouse and Avenger's facility. The lobby is done every night and the rest of the time is spent cleaning the inside of the windows. There's lots to get done. Did you get all of that?"

"Yeah I think so" Peter said despite feeling very overwhelmed.

"Great. In the meantime, let me show you where the top floor is."

Peter followed Patty back to the elevator and as the door closed she spoke, "FRIDAY requesting access to floor 100"

"Request granted" said a voice from seemingly nowhere and the elevator promptly began to move.

"Wow, is Friday the AI?" Peter asked and Patty smiled.

"Yes Peter I am. I oversee all the facilities here at Stark Industries" the AI replied and Peter gawked. This had to be the coolest thing ever.

The doors then opened to a floor that was open with all glass. It seemed to be a lounge area with couches and televisions and even a mini bar.

"Welcome to the Avenger's Lobby" said the AI.

Yeah never mind this was definitely taking the cake.

"Wow" Peter said.

"Impressive right? You must be careful about touching things in here though. We're only authorized to clean certain areas. For our purposes we need to head outside." Patty lead Peter to the outdoor balcony which had an absolutely impressive view of New York City.

"Right here is where our workers will attach their ropes," she said motioning towards the ledge,"Everything here is reinforced to handle upwards to 10 tons of weight, due to the Avenger's needs. So it specced out perfectly for our purposes."

"Typically we have around 20 people working at once. There's lots of areas to clean"

"Do the Avengers not mind everyone coming in and out?" Peter asked looking through the empty lobby.

"Honestly, most of them don't come down here. They stay in the floors up above. This area is mostly for meetings or parties" she said and they both walked back inside.

"When we get back you're going to need to sign NDAs and security clearance papers" and Peter nodded. He glanced around once more as they waited for the elevator. He couldn't believe he was even here to begin with.

After signing a copious amount of paperwork, something about not spilling company or government secrets, Peter finally said his goodbyes and headed back onto the streets. He felt excited, but also immensely relieved. Nobody had suspected a thing and he now had the chance of maybe spotting an Avenger? How cool was that.

He was at the steps of Grand Central when he stopped and turned around, running to find the nearest alley way. He was already in New York right? Might as well have some fun before heading back home. Tonight Spiderman would roam the streets of downtown Manhattan.

\---

Tonight was not his night. Tony was unbelievably swamped with work. Pepper and him weren't on good terms so she wasn't there to help relieve his workload. In fact calling and checking in on her was one of the things on his ever growing list. But, he could never seem to get the courage to talk to her and work something out. I guess that was one of the blessings of work. Something to distract him and keep the million other personal issues he had at bay.

He flipped through another spec sheet for the upcoming StarkPhone. With a brief glance he could already see the battery was going to cause issues. It took up 70% of the phone's internal space and he questioned its' longevity. He needed to allocate more people to solve this problem. It kept getting pushed back and the launch date was nearing soon.

"Friday, for the next 3 months I want all qualified R&D staff to look into new methods of battery fabrication. We need to create a battery with a longer lifespan and smaller size asap."

"Sure boss, would you like me to send this as a casual email or a 'I mean business' email"

"Definitely 'I mean business'"

"Noted. I sent the email out."

"Thanks Fri," he said and leaned back in his chair massaging his eyes. The coffee was already starting to wear off. But there was so much to do, he couldn't afford getting sleepy. Maybe he should invest in caffeine pills ...

"Boss it appears Spider-Man is in Manhattan this evening."

"Spider who?"

"The new vigilante from Queens you wanted me to start keeping tabs on starting last month. They've made a showing in downtown Manhattan tonight"

"Well that's curious. Manhattan is a long ways from Queens"

"Indeed. But in the last hour they've stopped 2 pick pocketing's, a convenience store robbery and helped 8 grandma's cross the street"

Tony snorted at the last comment. Obviously the new vigilante wasn't doing any harm. In fact they seemed like the kind of thing people needed right now. Not the crazy destructive antics of the Avengers. Someone low to the ground, a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.

"Hey Friday, start a new project file. Call it Spider-Man MK1"

"Spider-Man MK1 file created in the projects directory. I also feel obligated to remind you of your other 72 tasks you need to complete within the next 48 hours"

"Yes, but Friday I am the champion of procrastination" he said already beginning to make the preliminary sketches for the suit.

"Lets see if you still believe that in 4 more hours"

Tony rolled his eyes," I see you have so much faith in me"

"Always boss"

So instead of doing the countless other things on his agenda, he began making the small time superhero his own high-tech Stark-made suit.

\---

Bonus artwork: 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Thank you all for reading this fic! It's my first time ever writing something and I'm glad to have you along. I hope I can write something that's interesting for y'all 
> 
> (also I apologize for the copious amount of typos I make. I promise I'll go back and fix them someday)

Spider-manning in Manhattan was so much more fun than Queens Peter decided as he opened the door to his apartment. The immense scale of the high rises made swinging from building to building so fun. Plus it seems as though Manhattan knew of the vigilante and he got a lot of cheers from the people as he swung around. Needless to say it was fun. And he was productive during the short time he was there. The one nice old lady even treated him to a hot dog. Now he didn't need to use any of May's money to buy food. 

He showered and once changed into comfy pajamas started a video call with Ned and MJ to do homework. They wanted to know everything about his new job. 

"How was it dude?" Ned asked excitedly.

"It was so awesome. My boss is pretty nice. She said I get to start training next Monday"

"Whoa they're actually letting you work thousands of feet in the air? That's like so dangerous" 

"You're saying that like he doesn't do it every night," MJ interject. Both of his friends already knew about this nightly excursions as a vigilante. The three were sworn to secrecy (they forced MJ to handshake on it, to her dismay) and could not tell anyone, especially Aunt May. 

"I know, but this is just ... different" 

"Great come back Ned," Peter pokes and the three laugh at that. 

"Haha, so funny guys. But, does your aunt know about it?" Ned asks.

"No ... and you guys have to promise not to tell her"

"Don't worry man. I'll just tell her you're hanging out with me building the new Lego Death Star. Aunt May tunes out anything you say after the word Lego. It's basically science at this point"

"That's so true. Omg I also got to visit the Avenger's floor's lobby"

"WHAT?" Ned shouted and MJ yanked her earbuds out.

"Ned please I don't plan on going deaf anytime soon" MJ moans and Ned covers his mouth and mutters a quick sorry.

"Did you get to see any Avengers?" Ned whisper screams and Peter rolled his eyes.

"No, my boss said they don't even use the facilities any more. So I probably won't get to see them"

"You still might get to see Tony Stark. It's technically his company and he works and lives there," MJ proposed, "I read somewhere that it's bad to live where you work. You associate your living space as your job and you never stop working" 

"That would kinda suck," Peter says and flips open his World History textbook. 

"Says Peter as he works on his bed," Ned snickers.

"What? It's comfortable up here," Peter exclaims and props his head on a pillow.

"Yeah and that's why you fall asleep on call every night" MJ retorts and opens her Calculus textbook.

"Very funny guys, I thought we were studying history tonight?"

"Oh I already read through the chapter"

"What? When did you finish reading it?" Peter says and Ned moans in the background. 

"When you were both talking about whether Iron Man or Captain America would win in a fight against each other during PE. Seriously, do you two ever do homework in your free time?"

"Sometimes ... " Ned mumbles. 

"Ahuh, well chop chop get to work," MJ says and begins answering the textbook questions while the two boys begin reading the chapter on the Hellenistic period.

\---

The weekend passes by quickly and Peter got a lot of patrolling in. Queens was overall pretty quiet, but he managed to catch a few people in the act occasionally. Soon before he knew it it was Monday and he was waving goodbye to his friends as he ran towards the nearest subway station. An hour later Peter had changed into his work uniform in the locker rooms and gone to the hundredth floor to meet Charlie. He was greeted by a middle-aged man who was setting up equipment on the deck. 

"Hi my name's Charlie, you must be Peter"

"Yeah, that'd be me"

"Well it's great to finally meet you. Why don't you help me get these ropes set up and I'll walk you through everything.

They went through how to secure the harnesses, the equipment and Peter took mental note of everything he was learning. 

"Don't worry about memorizing everything. I'll help you get everything set up next week," Charlie reassured him.

"Really? That'd be great"

"Yeah no sweat. You've been following along very well. Have you ever done rock climbing before?"

"Well ... not with ropes" 

"AH you're one of those daredevils aren't you"

"I guess you could say that," Peter said nervously. He was treading around the fact he was a part-time vigilante. Hopefully he didn't spill anything too telling.

"Well then this should be a piece of cake. How about you try hanging off the side?" Charlie said and Peter looked over the side and swallowed. From this height you could barely see the sidewalk thousands of feet below. He didn't know why he was nervous now, as he did this every night. Plus he had this web-shooters on under the uniform sleeves in case of a life or death scenario. 

"I'll be okay doing that?"

"Yeah of course. If you get too scared I'll just reel you back in. It isn't windy today either so it'll be easy"

Peter swung his legs over the side of the ledge and got his footing on the opposite side. Taking a deep breath he let go of the railing and leaned back and allowed himself to slowly hang in the harness. In no time Peter found himself dangling 30 feet from the edge taking in the view of New York City. 

"How's the view down there?" Charlie shouted.

"It's pretty great," Peter shouted back. 

"Yeah I never forgot the first time I did this. I was simultaneously fearing for and having the time of my life. Do you feel comfortable? Want to try going down a few more feet?"

"Yeah lets try that"

So that's how Peter spent the rest of the week. Scaling the side of the building on ropes and taking in the breathtaking New York sunset. He also got to wave at a few workers who saw him through the window which was pretty fun overall. And no one suspected anything was amiss. 

\---

He was out of coffee. How was that possible? 

Tony opened every last cabinet and all he could find was a pack of chamomile tea that definitely didn't have any caffeine. 

"Friday is there any coffee here?"

"No boss. I must also inform you your usual weekly shipment is delayed as well"

"You know what, I'm quitting coffee. Buy me a stash of caffeine pills"

"Unfortunately I unable to do that"

"What? Why?"

"According to my protocols, caffeine pills is one of the items I am not allowed to purchase for you"

"Who updated that protocol? Sure as hell wasn't me"

"The modification to the database was made by Pepper Potts"

Tony paused and felt the emotions coming back to him. He turned away from the cabinet and leaned against the counter. 

*Of course she'd do something like that*, he thought, *Always looking out for me when I couldn't do shit.*

He wanted to make things right, but she made it very clear she needed time away to process and he didn't blame her for that. She'd already dealt with him nearly dying on 4 separate occasions, not to mention his insomnia and toxic behavior. He didn't blame her. 

But, how long was enough time? He wanted to relay that he was still waiting and faithful just to her. Should he make the first move or should he wait for her? 

"Boss are you alright?"

"Hm?" he said as he shoved his thoughts back into the 'deal with it later' corner. 

"I asked if you'd like me to remove that protocol" 

"Oh no, keep it there. It's probably for the better" 

"Very well then. If you'd like to know, there's a mini bar on floor 100 that has instant coffee packs. I know it's not your usual French press coffee though."

"Honestly I really could care less" he said and walked towards the elevator door inside the lab. As the door closed shut he could see his ghostly reflection staring back at him. He definitely had seen better days. His hair was a greasy mess, eyes sunken in and his skin was an unusually pale tint. Probably because he hadn't eaten anything today. Definitely not the Stark-perfect complexion he usually sported. Tony just hoped there was no ambassador or government official having a hang out session in his building to witness his deplorable state.

The door opened and he breathed a sigh of relief when there were no people in sight. He went to the back of the mini bar and opened the cabinets searching for the box of instant coffee packets. When he found it, he was about to turn around and head back when he saw two figures on the ledge of the terrace.

"Friday? Why are there two people climbing my building?"

"They're the window cleaners" 

Oh. Of course. At this point he was so accustomed to evil bad guys wrecking havoc on his life that the obvious answer wasn't so obvious anymore.

"Isn't window cleaning done at the end of the month?" 

"Yes, but there is a new employee and he's receiving training right now" 

Makes sense. Although from this distance Tony could've sworn the smaller guy looked like he was a teenager.

"Don't you think the one guy looks a little too young?"

"I'm assuming you're talking about Mr Peter Parker. According to his papers he's 18 years of age, but I do have to agree he's on the smaller side" 

Tony paused for a moment staring at the two. Even though he spent his free time flying in a high-tech suit he could not understand how people willingly hung on ropes thousands of feet in the air. His heart wasn't strong enough for that kind of stress every single day. Deciding they were safe enough Tony headed back to his lab. 

He had to admit, after drinking the best cold brew the world has to offer, going back to instant coffee was taking a bit of getting used to. But it did give him the caffeine boost he desperately needed and he felt really good. Well ... as good as you can get when running on 48 hours of no sleep. 

After about an hour in he was making some good progress. R&D already had mock ups of new potential battery options for the phone and he sent the manufacturing invoice for the custom tooling of the phone's body to Pepper. 

"Boss I hate to interrupt you, but Spider-Man has been spotted again in Manhattan" 

"Really? He's been in Manhattan every day this last week"

"It is breaking his usual habit" 

Tony quickly switched tabs to the suit he was working on. It was still roughly made and he repurposed a lot of the Iron Man suit's mechanisms in it. But making a skin tight suit was definitely a lot more difficult than the Iron Man armor. Then again he'd never made another style of suit except his own and Rhodey's. Most of the Avengers relied on their fitted clothing. Hell, even Captain America solely relied on just his shield, the heroic bastard. 

Another problem he faced was replicating the webbing. Sure he is beyond capable in the sciences, but physics and engineering is more his style. Definitely not chemistry. So how exactly the vigilante made their webbing was beyond him. He knew it was insanely strong. The way they swung would create so much downward force that the average material would instantly snap. And it seemed to dissolve after a few hours. Tony was very impressed, and he wasn't easily impressed.

"Friday any idea of how to replicate the webbing?"

"According to some papers it most likely made of a substance that has helical structure with a protein based compound" 

"Protein based? Do you think the webs come out of ... them?" Tony couldn't help but wonder how arachnid this vigilante really was. 

"I'm hesitant to believe that. Unless the individual has had major body modifications performed on them, humans don't have the proper passage ways to create fluids in this manner." 

Well that's a relief. But that means he still has to find a way to replicate the webs. He went through a few papers on the internet and wrote down some chemical equations on a board. Creating the webs was easy enough, but making it strong enough to support human weight was challenging. 

"Hey Friday message Bruce will you? I think he'd get a kick out of solving this" and he continued scribbling formulas and running tests.


	3. Chapter 3

Peter groaned when he heard the sound of his phone alarm ring loudly. He picked his face up from his desk and rubbed his sore neck. Sleeping on a textbook was not the move. Working a job, patrolling and maintaining top grades was definitely affecting his sleep. It technically was the weekend, but he couldn't afford to sleep any longer. He had lots of homework to complete.

In the shower Peter rubbed his sore muscles with the hot water. Patrol got quite nasty last night. There was a robbery at a restaurant and he wasn't too careful. The burglar managed to slam him into a brick wall and it hurt ... a lot. The bruise on his shoulder was already fading into a yellow-green tint and the cut on his chin was nowhere to be found.

The sound of a door shutting could be heard and Peter quickly finished rinsing his hair and shut off the water. His aunt must be home.

In a new change of clothes Peter walked into the living room to see his aunt tiredly resting her head on the table.

"Hey Aunt May are you okay?" he asked quietly and she jolted up.

"Oh hi Peter, thought you were still in the shower ... I'm fine, just a long day at work," she sleepily said with a yawn and gave him a strained smile.

"Yeah I didn't take too long. Do you want some food?" he asked while untying a plastic bag of bread.

"Sure ... your cooking is better than mine," she said and returned to resting her head in her arms. Peter began toasting bread and cooking eggs on the stovetop. He wasn't the best cook, but he could keep everything rather unburnt unlike his aunt.

Speaking of his aunt - he glanced over from the stove - she looked exhausted. May had always been a hard worker, but he hadn't seen her this overworked since Ben's death. He knew he needed to work hard, he couldn't let his aunt keep all of the burden like that.

Plating the eggs and toast, he placed the food on the table for him and his aunt. She slowly rised, grabbing the fork and began eating.

"How's school been?"

"Um good, it's been going really well actually," Peter said and simultaneously stuffed his face with egg.

"That's good, how's Ned and that one girl you always talk about?"

"Her name's Michelle. And they're doing fine" his face flushed pink and his aunt smirked at that. She knew her nephew had been crushing on his classmate for sometime.

"You know you could ask her out ... " she suggested and Peter groaned.

"We're just friends May"

"Whatever you say Peter"

Despite how tired she way May always had enough energy to tease Peter (much to his dismay). But, as the food began to settle in she excused herself to sleep. She only had a few hours off before she needed to go back to work in the late afternoon. Peter took that opportunity to pack his bag and run over to Ned's house to hang out with him.

* * *

Peter did a quick side glance around the street and deeming it clear he did a running jump, stuck to the wall very temporarily and grabbed the fencing of the fire escape. He climbed up to the second floor and knocked on the window. A rustling could be heard from the other side and the blinds opened to reveal Ned's face.

Ned opened the window and Peter quickly hopped inside.

"Dude you know you could've just knocked at the front door?" he said and sat back at his computer.

"I know but it's more fun this way"

Ned's parents ran a family business so they weren't home on the weekends that often. So when Ned wasn't needed to help his parents out, he and Peter hung out together.

"Yo you have to see what I just finished," Ned said and opened his programming environment up on his computer. He ran the script and passed his friend an earbud. Peter put it in his ear and could hear what sounded like voices coming through the other end.

" _540\. We have a Code 4 for medical."_

" _Copy 540"_

Peter looked at Ned with bug eyes, "Is this a police feed?"

"Yup," said Ned proudly, "They're all available online. I scraped a website and made a quick phone app for them. So when you're patrolling you can listen to all of them"

"Are you serious?"

"Yeah, that was just Queen's 110 and 115 precincts right there"

"Ned you're amazing"

"Just being your man in the chair. Now give me your phone" he said and Peter scrambled to get it out of his backpack. Ned plugged it into his computer and moved files for the app on his phone. Once it was installed Peter opened it and looked at all the options. He could listen in on every single police radio station in all of New York.

"Patrols are going to be so much easier now"

"I was actually thinking we could add some voice recognition feature that scans through transcripts and have it notify you whenever incidents happen"

"Wait that'd be sick. Do you think incorporating maps would be too far fetched?"

"No, we can piggy back off of Google's libraries"

"Awesomeee"

So instead of doing homework the two continued to perfect the app. Peter couldn't wait to use it the next time he went on patrol.

* * *

Monday came faster then it should've. Peter was scrambling to get the last questions of his math assignment done during lunch. He would've stayed up later the night before, but today was the big day at work. It's the first time they'd begin cleaning the outside of the tower and he wanted to be awake for that. But, he was really stuck on this problem and he had three more to go. Peter felt himself stressing-

"Factor the x out," MJ said with her head covered by a book.

"Huh?"

"I'm guessing you're stuck on #35? It took me half an hour to figure it out. But if you factor the x then you can do a u-substitution and take the integral," she said. Peter looked back at his work and she was right. A few substitutions later and he had the answer. The last ones were much easier and he slammed his textbook just as the bell rang. Perfect timing.

The rest of school went pretty smoothly. Flash was ... annoying but he didn't really do anything atrocious which was pretty great. He even managed to whip up a new batch of webbing underneath the chemistry lab station while his teacher was reviewing test problems from last Friday.

Before he knew it he was walking up to the front steps of Stark Industries. The guard gave him a nod and Peter smiled. It still was crazy to him that he was an SI employee. Nobody was really in the lobbies at 3:48 in the afternoon, probably all at work, so the elevator ride was a smooth one way trip. Peter changed into his uniform and rushed to the hundredth floor where the other employees were getting setup.

"Hey Peter! You ready for today?" Charlie greeted.

"Yeah. I'm feeling, pretty good about it"

"Well that's great. Come over here and I'll get you setup"

Charlie helped Peter put the harness on and secure the ropes on the pulleys. Once he was done, Charlie went off to help the others and Peter patiently waited for everyone to finish. The weather was much cooler due to the elevation and so he crossed his arms tightly across his chest to keep warm.

"Alright just a few guidelines before we get started," Charlie announced as everyone stood by, "Make sure your lines are secured and check frequently that nothing seems amiss or is coming undone. Second, keep your equipment secured to you. If you drop anything bigger than a penny the personal injury lawyers will hear it from a mile away. Third, if the wind starts getting bad we cancel and head back up. The building creates winds that are extremely unpredictable, and the last thing we want happening is you getting tossed around. Be aware, because if anything happens most likely nobody will be able to rescue you. Well unless Spider-Man is around I suppose"

The team laughed and Peter tried to follow along and hide his shocked face. Oh the irony. Hopefully the situation never came to that. The last thing Peter wanted to do was expose his identity.

"Alright good luck everyone," Charlie said and the group took that as their queue to begin moving off the ledge and down the building.

Initially it was pretty overwhelming. Peter willed himself to not look down and only focus on the task in front of him. First wash the window down with soapy water and then scrape the excess with a squeegee. Wait for the others to finish. Go down another floor and repeat. Soon by the 5th floor it was pretty monotonous. Everyone was in sync working away.

As Peter put the soapy water on the window, he looked through the glass to see what was inside. It seemed to be a conference room and a group of people were sitting listening to a presenter. The glass of the building must've been extremely thick because even with his advanced hearing he couldn't quite make out what the people were saying. But he could definitely see what was inside quite clearly.

There were 1 .. 2 .. 3 .. 4 .. Peter wiped the soapy water covering the other half of the view .. 5 .. 6 .. 7 people sitting (well the last person barely counted as seated, they were slumped so far down their chair that Peter almost missed them) and 1 presenter. Peter wasn't sure why, but the one blonde guy near the front looked really familiar. If he turned his head like two inches to the left - the person turned his head to face Peter's direction. _Wow I must have telekinesis_ , Peter thought to himself, _and that guy looks like Captain America's doppelganger._ Then everyone in the room turned to face Peter's direction. And they all looked like people he'd seen on tv once or twice before.

Then the person closest to the window turned around and Peter could recognize that face from anywhere.

* * *

And this was how Tony was finally getting his much needed nap. Well if sleeping with your eyes half opened counted as a nap. The Avengers were being debriefed about new government changes, but Friday had already hacked, reviewed and updated him on all the information so Tony didn't even bother trying to pay attention to the nonsense coming out of Ross's mouth. He could tell he wasn't the only one bored out of his mind. Clint, Rhodey and Nat's eyes had glazed over twenty minutes ago and weren't processing any information. The only ones that seemed attentive were Vision, Wanda and Capsicle.

Letting his eyes finally close, Tony guessed the meeting would go on for another half hour. He could take a quick 20 minute power nap and wake up right before falling into Stage 2 sleep. Anything after Stage 2 was dangerous because he could enter REM sleep which meant one thing, nightmares. And Tony wasn't exactly ready to share that aspect of his life with his colleagues. Just as he felt like he was drifting off the noise in the room stopped. Odd. Tony opened his eyes and saw everyone staring him. Jees he'd just closed his eyes, were they really going to get on his case now. _No ... they're looking at something behind me_ , Tony thought. He turned around in his chair and was face to face with one of the workers for the monthly window cleaning.

He met the gaze of the cleaner, who looked ... well ... exactly how one looks when they realize they're seeing the Avengers in the flesh.

"What the hell is this?" Ross exclaimed and Tony snapped back to reality. Oh yeah he was still in this detestable meeting that he so wanted to get out of. _Actually_ , he thought, _This could be the perfect diversion_.

"Window cleaners," he said which evidently wasn't a good enough explanation for Ross, "What? You guys don't have people who clean your facilities in DC? I guess that explains a lot ..."

"No, why are they doing this now when we're in the middle of an important meeting? These are highly classified documents-"

"Highly classified?" Tony throws his hands up in mock apology, "Sorry I really didn't know. Well it looks like we can't exactly do this meeting anymore" and gets up from his chair.

"That's bs Stark. And where do you think you're going?"

"Just checking to make sure my employees are doing a good job. In case you forgot I run this company" he says and pretends to inspect all edges of the window. Deeming it satisfactory he flashes a thumbs up and the kid on the other side grins in response.

"This is ridiculous"

"I agree. This," Tony waves at the presentation,"... is quite ridiculous". He grabs his phone from the table and walks towards the front of the room.

"Now in the meantime, I have more important matters to attend to," he says in a final tone and exits the room. The remaining people in the room glance at each other and then back to the window, but the cleaner was nowhere to be seen.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait! Just finished school and I'm back at writing. Thank you for all the support <3 More updates soon :-)

Tony made a quick stop to his penthouse before heading back to the lab. His reason? Well the weekly grocery shipment came, which meant one thing ... coffee. After opening the box with the 10 bags of ground coffee beans - yes he was aware that was a lot, but he consumed a copious amount of coffee - he made his afternoon pick me up. Just the rich smell of the roasted beans made him perk up after that mundane meeting. 

He put a tablespoon of ground coffee into the French Press. Or the cafetière as the French properly called it. He poured hot water over it, stirred and let the mixture steep for a few minutes. During that time he packed the rest of the items in the fridge he had Friday order. Although he usually lived off of take out and intermittent starvation he was trying to fix that bad habit. Recently, he'd come across a few cookbooks Pepper left behind and taken a liking to them. Sure it took him an extensive amount of time to prepare food, if he ever decided to eat (which wasn't as often as he should), but it was a good way to get lost in monotonous work and keep the deeper thoughts at bay. And you'd get a semi delicious meal out of it, a win win. 

"Boss, Dr. Banner wants to let you know he's made progress on the Spider-Man webbing and would like you to see it whenever you are free”

"Alright, let him know I'll be right down," Tony said as he packed away the last few items. He grabbed a box of cashew bars from one of the bags. *Maybe Bruce would want one*, he wondered and leaves the box on the counter. Coffee not forgotten, he filtered the remaining grounds and poured the hot liquid into a cup. The drink was amazing. After living off of instant coffee for a week this tasted indescribably better.

He headed back to the elevator with snacks and coffee in hand and shortly found himself in the lab the floor below. Bruce was poring over a microscope and taking notes in a small ledger when Tony found him. 

"What are you looking at?" Tony asked and tapped his friend's shoulder with the box of granola bars. 

"Just the structure of the substance, it's got a few problems with it - oh what's this?" 

"Cashew bars, kind of my newest obsession. Try one"

Bruce took his gloves off and grabbed a bar from the box. He opened it and took a bite. It was nutty, chewy and the brown sugar glaze added a perfect subtle sweetness. 

"They're good" 

"Right? Just don't look at the calorie count, it might bring out the big guy. What's going on with the webbing?"

"Well I've got the overall structure down, but there's some inconsistencies that keep arising. Specifically with its viscosity." He took a stirrer, stuck it in a beaker and pulled it out. A sticky white goo stuck to the glass and stretched.

"It definitely looks thicker than I imagined," Tony remarked. 

"Yeah, this definitely won't stretch more than maybe 3 feet," Bruce said and stuck the stirrer back in the beaker, "From the videos it looked as though it could travel a minimum of a hundred feet"

"Does the reaction time take long? Maybe as it shoots out the chemical compound reacts in the air?"

"It's possible, but this reaction took about a minute and then it really solidified after 5. Maybe if you kept the contents under high pressure?" 

"Hm ..." Tony rubbed the back of his neck. This was proving to be quite difficult.

"I'll keep working on it. Do you need this done sometime soon? I haven't done organic chemistry work in such a long time so I'm still trying to remember everything"

"No don't worry about it, this is just a passion project. And really? I thought your work involved this material all the time"

"Well, I do look at biology and molecular structures from time to time, but it's by no means anywhere near o-chem. Two different beasts."

"That's for sure. I haven't touched chemistry since ... probably my undergrad"

"And you were probably like what, 15?"

"Maybe," Tony chuckled, "It's been so long I can hardly remember" 

Bruce hummed in response, "How was the meeting?"

"Oh god, an absolute nightmare. Anytime I hear Ross speak my ears bleed. Can't stand being anywhere less than a 100 ft from him"

"Agreed. That's why I take the pass," he moved back to the lab station and began cleaning up his supplies, "I try to avoid stressful situations" 

"Mhm, yet you still willingly spend time with me"

"Yeah, well you're tolerable when you're not trying to flaunt your ego. No offense"

"None taken," Tony says and begins walking back to his desk area. He opens the Spider-Man project file and writes some notes on the update with the webbing. 

"Have you even met this Spider-Man fella before?"

"Nope" 

"But you're still building him a suit?"

"Yup"

"What's your motive?"

"I don't know," Tony said crossing his arms and looking at the computer-generated model of the suit, "Maybe I just see the superhero I wish I could be in him" 

"Oh? And why can't you be him?"

Tony snorted, "Well I run a company for one, I have political diplomats betting on my downfall, and I can't keep myself or the people in my life safe. Yet this small guy is just happily swinging around being the good Samaritan. Sure they aren't fighting world-changing crimes, but for the people that receive their help, it makes all the difference. He's their protector and they're in good hands. I want to help the guy out. Give them better equipment, more safety precautions. I can't imagine that onesie does them any good. So to sum up my long rant, if I can't do it then I can fund the people that can" 

Bruce nodded his head taking everything in, "That's really good of you Tony" 

"Yeah? Just promise me you won't tell Ross about any of this"

"Nah don't worry about. Secret is safe with me"

Looking at his friend Bruce felt he could hardly recognize the same person that he'd met years ago. Granted Tony didn't exactly look great, he'd heard through passing rumors that he was having personal problems, but doesn't everyone? He was more open and the facade he usually carried was more or less gone. But maybe that was because Bruce had finally made it into the close circle that Tony felt comfortable with. Nonetheless it was progress and that always warranted recognition.

"Alright big man, I have to go check up on the R&D department real quick before they clock out for the day," Tony said changing the subject.

“They’re still here? It’s 8 o’ clock shouldn’t they be out already?”

“In my defense they scheduled the meeting, not me. Plus they get to work way past 2 pm so their sleeping schedules are beyond fucked. I don’t care as long as they get their 8 hours in everyday.”

“It’s not like your work-life balance is any better” 

"Yeah yeah but I make it work.” 

Bruce rolled his eyes at that as Tony put his suit jacket on and walked briskly towards the doors. 

“You're free to stay here as long as you'd like, but I think I'm going to head out after the meeting is over"

"You're not staying in the lab? Should I be concerned?" This was new. 

"Nope. Rhodey's in town and I promised him we'd get dinner tonight. He's probably going to also yell at me for ditching the meeting, but you win some and you lose some" Tony shrugged. 

"Well somewhere in between that tell him I say hello" 

"I'll try, if he even lets me speak again"

The two said their goodbyes and Bruce headed back to the messy lab station he was working at. He kept thinking about their interaction, but deciphering emotions was too tiring for his brain. Science was more his speed.

\---

Peter banged his head into his locker's door. His colleagues sent him weird glances and Peter quickly apologized. It's just ... he'd definitely interrupted an Avenger's level meeting. Now that he was more collected that blonde man was THE Captain America, the red head must've been Black Widow and the red man with the stone in his head looked pretty cool. But on top of that Tony fucking Stark was there. This warranted more head bangs from Peter and more side glances at the employee’s weird behavior. 

Just thinking of the thumbs up Mr. Stark gave made him want to scream. He existence was acknowledged by his idol? But, he instantly felt guilt crushing his good mood. He interrupted an Avenger's meeting. He hoped he wouldn't get into any trouble for that. The guidelines said to never intentionally disrupt employees from their work and that's kind of what he did. It wasn't exactly intentional, but it definitely disrupted something very important.

Walking down the empty lobby to the elevator he pressed the button and waited for the doors to open. Taking a deep breath he tried to quell his thoughts. He just needed to be calm, cool and collected -

The elevator doors opened and Tony Stark stood in the corner on his phone 

... Never mind, being calm was a thing of the past. The remaining brain cells in Peter's head refused to work because all he could do was stand and stare in shock. 

The man, wondering what was taking so long, glanced up from his phone and stared at the star-struck teenager, "Are you getting in?" 

That snapped Peter out of his daze real quick, "Oh y-yeah sorry" he said and tried to walk in as casually as possible. 

"What floor?" Tony asked and Peter couldn't help but stare. Yes this man in an expensive all black suit was Tony Stark in the flesh and he was asking him a question like it was the most casual and normal thing to do.

"Oh um, just the ground floor"

"You heard it Fri"

"Of course, I always do" the AI responded and Tony bit back a retort. The AI never missed a chance to point out her features. The elevator doors closed promptly and began to move downward. 

Tony glanced at the rigid, quiet person next to him and felt oddly puzzled. 

"I'm sorry, but do I know you? You look really familiar" Tony asked, pocketing his phone and looked at the boy.

"Uhh ..." Peter wasn't sure what to say. Should he reveal that he was the one that 100% ruined a top-secret meeting earlier today?

"Wait, yes, you're the guy that interrupted our meeting" Tony said and snapped his fingers. So much for keeping that on the down low.

"Aah yeah sorry about that. I didn't mean to get in the way" 

"No, you actually did me a big favor. Can't stand listening to half those guys speak to begin with. If you could do that during all my meetings I'd be thrilled," Tony gave a cheeky grin and Peter felt his soul leave his body. On top of that he was very relieved, he wasn't going to get in trouble and he was even being thanked?

The elevator slowed to a stop and the doors opened.

"Well thanks again ... I don't think I ever caught your name"

"It's uh Peter"

"Peter, nice talking to you" 

"Yeah same" 

And with that the illustrious man exited and the doors closed making it seem as though the exchange never happened. Peter stared right at the spot the man once was and felt his brain try to process everything. Did that just happen? No way that just happened. 

"Peter are you okay? I'm detecting an elevated heart rate and faster breathing that normal" the AI said interrupting his stream of thoughts.

"Yeah ... I'm fine. Who ... Who was that by the way?"

"You were just talking to Tony Stark. If the name isn't familiar, he's the company's current owner and largest shareholder"

Oh so that did happen. 

Peter grabbed his phone out of his pocket and opened the group chat at the top. Ned and MJ weren't going to believe this. 

\---

Tony entered the mostly dark R&D laboratory and walked towards the back room. Everyone was gone for the day with just a few lingering people working meticulously away at their desktops. As he walked passed the open work area he glanced at the decorations the worker's had placed in their cubicles. Most had their walls were covered with family and vacation photographs and some had jars of candy perched precariously along their desk. One person even doodled a baby yoda and taped it to their desktop monitor that said "Will be back Next Week" in big cursive font. 

At the entry to the back laboratories, Friday unlocked the glass door to let him in. The lights slowly turned on to a soft glow detecting Tony's motion in the room. Towards the back of the hall he could see a brighter light illuminating a lab and he walked towards it. At the door he saw a person hunched over their work and gave quick knock on the door frame which alerted the person from their work.

"Oh Mr Stark, please come in," the lady said as she pushed back her long unkempt mullet and moved the tools aside from her workspace, "Thanks for agreeing to meet with me at such an odd hour" 

"No worries Min. And just call me Tony, no need for formalities. What do you have here?" he asked and looked at a collection of petri dishes on the table.

"Well, I'm not sure if you recall, but earlier this year my team started working on nano robotics and I actually have something to show you that is quite interesting," she remarked and grabbed a dish and placed it under a microscope, "Here take a look"

She motioned at the eye piece and Tony removed his glasses so he could look through it. Squinting through the lens he could see small, microscopic pill-sized bugs linked together in a hexagonal structure. 

"Are these insects?" 

"No, they're actually robots. But, they do resemble pill bugs or worms" 

"Impressive. Do you have schematics for these?"

"Yes, I do," she remarked and quickly moved to her desktop to open drawing files. Tony leaned over her shoulder to look at the model designs and the embedded circuitry. The actual robot itself was quite simplistic. But the simulations of the robots linked together made it far more complex.

"How are they powered?" 

"Currently through heat. We let them rest on a warmed bed and they use a thermoelectric effect to convert the temperature to voltage"

"How warm in order for it to work?"

"Anywhere between 90 to 120 degrees Fahrenheit."

"So a person's body temperature would work perfectly for this?" 

"Yes, precisely. Although the human body's temperature gradient is extremely uneven, which makes the bots very unstable. We're still trying to figure out how to combat this" 

"Interesting. Do you have any working examples of robots formed in a network?" 

"We have dozens of simulations, but we just managed to get one working recently. Would you like to see it?"

"Yes please" 

The scientist moved to the lab station and poured the nanobots onto the heated metal bed. She opened a box and put on a pair of sheer gloves.

"What are those for?" Tony asked as she adjusted the fabric on her finger tips. 

"It's our current solution for even heat distribution," she remarked and placed her right hand on the bed, "Friday, please deploy and run project nano."

The AI immediately responded, "Of course, would you like to use the current build or the last working build"

*(Build is the process of converting code so that it can be run on a computer, robot, machine, etc.)*

"Lets do current build" 

"I must warn you that the current build is still untested" 

"I understand Friday just run it" 

"Understood. Deploying code to nanobots" 

Tony felt like he should say something about the dangers of running untested code, but he kept quiet. He had his fair share of running unfinished tests after all.

"Code compiled and running in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ..." 

The nanobots began swarming and crawling quickly up Min's hand. Soon an entire black coating covered the glove and as she moved her fingers the robots adjusted and realigned with her. 

"The robots are currently programmed to morph around any object we tell it to. Currently the object is my hand, but it's versatile. And it handles dynamic motion very well" 

"Now that is impressive," Tony finally lets out with a whistle. He'd never seen nanobots so intricately move and network together, "What are you planning on using these for again?"

"Hopefully for biomedical applications, but that's if the board gives the green light for funding in the future" 

"Oh they'll approve of it, for sure. I'll put in a good word"

"Would you really?"

"Of course. It really wouldn't be necessary though, this is quite the show stopper," he said reassuringly. This type of tech was going to be quite revolutionary and put Stark Industries far ahead of all their competitors. However, a different idea was creeping into his mind and he wondered if it would work.

"Do you mind if I make a request?"

"Depends what it is" 

"Well once this tech is more solidified, I'd like to implement it to some of my projects. Would that be possible?"

"I mean I don't see why not. But we're still in the beginning phases of development. Given our current pace it'll take us at least another two years to have something substantial and full proof"

"What if you had a bigger team and more funding? Lets say double what you currently"

"Well then probably half the time or less" 

"Perfect. I'm sure the investors will agree to that"

"Seriously? That'd be great. But what projects do you exactly need these for?"

"Oh, I don't know yet. But a new suit sounds quite fun don't you think?" 

\---

Tony spotted Happy waiting with outside with the parked car and quickly made his way out the front doors and into the back seat. He slammed the door and Happy quickly entered the New York traffic.

"You're late," Happy muttered and looked in the rearview mirror to see his boss typing away at his phone.

"Yes, but for a good reason" 

"You always say that"

"I do not. Besides, I always spend my time carefully"

"Sure thing. Where are you and Mr Rhodes meeting tonight?"

"At that burger joint in the Upper East Side we always go to. And make it snappy, don't want to make Rhodey mad over our timeliness" 

Suppressing an angry response, Happy focused his energy in cutting a car off in traffic and driving as abruptly and nauseatingly as possible. 

\---

"You really met IRON MAN," Ned screamed at the top of his lungs and Peter was glad he remembered to set his volume to nearly zero. Currently he was swinging through Manhattan looking for crime, while talking to his best bud about his crazy day at work over a phone call.

"Yeah man, like in the flesh. Dude he's actually a lot shorter than I thought he'd be"

"Seriously? In the papers he looks so tall. How about Captain America, what did he look like"

"Uh the same, I guess. More normal since he wasn't in his suit" 

"That's insane. Peter what even is your life" 

"I know right dude. Honestly, I'm just happy I didn't get in trouble"

"Dude I'd totally commit crime just to meet an Avenger. Even if it meant Captain America had to deck me in the face. It'd be such an honor"

"Ned that was so masochistic are you okay?"

"Peter I hope you understand that when I say I'd do anything for the Avengers, I mean anything"

"I'll keep that in mind" 

Peter shot a web that secured to a metal balcony across the street and he swung gracefully, landing perfectly on the roof. He scanned the pedestrians down below, but nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary. A group of students were walking together sporting tall iced coffees, an elderly man walked his german shepherd and a lady walked out of a restaurant with a bag full of takeout. 

"Anything happening tonight Ned?"

"Nothing in your area. Although in upper east side there were complaints about a man harassing people, but he hasn't been caught yet"

"Hm, lets go check it out," Peter said and jumped off the roof causing one of the students below to let out a scream. But he he quickly shot a web to a neighboring building and swung across the block.


	5. Thank You!

Hello! I just wanted to pop in quickly and say thank you so much for all the support and love! This is my first time ever writing a fanfic and it makes me so happy that you guys are reading it. I drew some fanart (I have to admit, I haven't drawn in a while, so I apologize if Peter looks a little inconsistent haha) as a thank you! If you like the art, I might try and make one for updates every so often. They're fun to do! Albeit, they are kinda scrappy. 

Anyways I appreciate all of you! Thanks for making the end of 2020 better :') See you in future updates bc it's going to be a wild ride! Lots of plot and all.


	6. Chapter 5

The good thing about eating out late on a Monday night is the absolute lack of people on the streets. Of course it's New York, so there's always a few people walking about, but typically the beginning of the work week meant very little partying and that was the best time for Tony to leave the tower. Luckily at that late hour no one had the energy to recognize the presence of a billionaire.

Happy stopped the car at the destination and Tony made his way to the small brick-wall restaurant at the corner. He found Rhodey sitting alone at a table in the far back.

"Took you long enough," Rhodey said and after setting down his beer.

"Yeah, well I had a meeting with someone. It went a bit longer than expected"

"Hopefully it went better than our meeting ..."

“Anything that doesn't involve Ross is automatically better"

"His presentation wasn't that bad this time"

"Oh please, you all looked as though you were ready to take an afternoon siesta. And I assume you felt the same"

"Well sure, but at least I have self control"

"And I have self preservation skills"

"Now that is one hell of a lie and we both know that." Rhodey said with a laugh.

"Comes with the job I suppose," Tony replied as he read the menu.

Meanwhile on the top of a building Peter shivered as he felt a draft of cold air blow through the fabric of his hoodie. He wished his super strength came with extra resilience to weather, but no he felt cold and hot just like any other ordinary person.

"Anymore news Ned?"

"No there hasn't been anything. It's a quiet night"

"Yeah well most people don't like doing anything on a Monday"

He spotted an old man crossing the street below. With a quick jump and a web he landed right behind him and offered to help carry their groceries to their car. In the meantime while he waited, this would have to do.

“She checks up on you, you know that?”

“Yeah probably just to make sure I haven’t died and or killed myself yet,” Tony snorted sarcastically.

“I know you don’t mean that”

Tony shook his head, “Yeah I don’t. How is she doing?”

"Shouldn't you be asking her instead of me?"

"Well she doesn't want to talk to me"

"Have you even tried calling?"

"Not exactly"

"So you don't know?"

"Trust me she made it very clear when she said we needed a break she didn't want to speak to me and I'm just trying to respect that. Is she doing okay?"

"Yeah she's doing fine last time I checked. Just working hard as always"

Tony nodded and sighed, "Do you think I should end it?"

"End the relationship? Why?"

"I've been thinking about it. It'd probably be the for the best. Especially for her"

"Do you want the relationship to end though?"

"Well no ... I don't"

"Then you can't answer for her. If she wants to end the relationship she'll come tell you. She knows what's best for her. But you don't want to end it so give her some time to decide"

Tony knew he was right but before he could say anything in response a scream rang out from outside. Everyone in the restaurant fell silent and stood up from their chairs to see what was happening. A man was yanking a woman hard by the wrist and only moments later a person in a blue and red hoodie dropped from the sky.

They didn't need to communicate what they were going to do next because the two friends were already running out the door to help.

* * *

"Hey that isn't cool man," Peter remarked. The crusty man gripped the woman's wrist tight and Peter hoped they didn't break it. He had to distract and focus all their energy on him instead of the woman. So he put on a lax stance and the man took that as an opportunity to swing a fist in his direction. Peter ducked back, narrowly missing the punch as it flew over his head. He quickly webbed the man's legs and pulled them out from under him causing them to fall and let go of the woman. Peter pulled the frozen lady up and pushed her into the crowd of people that had gathered around them.

Peter felt a tingling in the back of his ears and turned to see a blade just mere inches from his chest. The man had used the knife to cut the webbing and was on his feet again. Luckily two men from the crowd lunged, grabbing the person from behind and pulled aggressively back so the knife only nicked the fabric of his sweater. After webbing the attacker’s hands Peter grabbed the weapon and tossed it away from them on the floor. He webbed their legs and arms once again so they could no longer stand or move. Peter could hear the wail of police sirens approaching them and decided it was his time to bail.

"Thanks for the help," he said to the two men and gave a thumbs up before web slinging out of the scene. He knew some of the Queens police members because of his Uncle and was comfortable around them, but he didn't want to take any chances with the Manhattan police. From a distance he watched the police cars approach and apprehend the scene.

"Dude ... what happened," a voice whispered that made Peter jump.

"Ned were you on call that whole time?"

"Uh yeah? I just didn't say anything cause you sounded busy. I hear police sirens. Did you get the guy?"

"Yeah got the guy Ned"

"That's so cool. Are you going to keep going or head back to Queens? It's almost 11:30"

"I'll probably head back, it's getting late"

"Cool man. I have to go, but you can text me whenever"

"Alright Ned, see ya later"

"Bye Peter"

The call ended and Peter looked back at the crowd. The police were getting witness accounts and trying to find a way to unstick the man from the concrete. If anything, the webbing would dissolve in 3 hours. Peter was confident the police were already familiar with that fact. He shot a web at the next building and began making his way to the nearest subway entrance.

* * *

"Thanks for the help"

Tony and Rhodes watched the spider person leap and bound over buildings away. They huffed and sat on the sidewalk out of breath next to the guy.

"Do you ever wonder if we're getting to old for this kind of thing?" Rhodey asked. The man webbed to the ground started to make a sound and he gave him a solid punch to the head which silenced him quickly.

"I mean there's already a whole new generation of superheroes. Maybe we should just retire," Rhodey kept going unaware that his friend was taking samples from the webbing and safely storing it between two cards in his wallet.

"You know Fury won't let us, we'll probably die doing this kind of thing. Also I don't know about you but I'm going to finish my burger"

"Can you bring mine outside. We have to tell the police what happened"

"Fine. Whatever you want Honeybear. Your wish is my command"

After dealing with the police who couldn't seem to figure out how to unstick the person from the cement, Tony quickly headed back to his lab to run some tests on the sample.

"Friday I want you to run protocol tests on this," he said as he placed the webbing inside a test tube vial and inside a rack of a sealed plexiglass machine. Half of it was already dissolving but a good chunk of it was still intact.

"Sure thing boss. Would you like to do extensive testing and simulation of the molecular structure? The processing time will take around a week?"

"Yes, but it takes that long?"

"Each test takes at least a day long to complete. In the meantime I'll apply a preservative agent to prolong it for that time"

"Alright, well you do your work girl"

"Yes boss, will do"

* * *

Peter stuffed the check inside an envelope and sealed it shut. He wrote the address out to the local municipal company that charged the monthly water bill. Since May worked so many long hours, all she had time for when she got home was to eat and sleep. She said she'd get around to paying the bills but Peter knew better. So he took it upon himself to get it done. Plus, it also allowed him to switch which accounts he used.

His first paycheck came in last week and just after 2 weeks of 4-hour shifts he'd made $800, which after taxes was about $670. So far it covered the groceries, water, gas and even electricity bill. He was finally helping out.

But as he sifted through the rest of the bills he tried to not get discouraged. The rent was definitely a killer. May paid a premium so she and Peter could live in a nice apartment which also meant it took a sizeable chunk from her paycheck. On top of that there was renter's insurance, the credit card bill, transportation fees and the list went on. Finishing the last bill, Peter grabbed the stack of envelopes and headed out the door of the apartment. In the lobby he put all the envelopes in the small outgoing mailbox.

Debating whether or not to go back to the apartment, Peter finally decided to go for a walk. His anxiety was begin to resurface and he hoped a stroll down the busy streets would get his mind off it. But, after a half hour of wandering around nothing seemed to work. Stealthily, he climbed a building and sat at the top of the roof looking across town.

Peter looked at his phone and saw a message from MJ.

MJ: "What's up?"

Peter: "Not much, just at the top of a building with lots of thoughts"

MJ: "Hey ... you okay man?"

Peter: "Not really :( "

MJ: "Do you want to come over? We can chit chat"

Peter: "Are your parents okay with that?"

MJ: "They dgaf. You'll just have to chill on the fire escape"

Peter: "Cool"

Peter laid against the wall and MJ climbed out of her window with her sketchbook to join him on the fire escape. For a moment they stayed there in the silence and watched the cars noisily drive down the street. Peter could hear MJ sketching away with her pencil.

"So what's up with you?" she asked breaking the silence.

"Me? I dunno ... just stuff"

"Well stuff can mean a lot of different things"

Peter shakily laughed and nodded. He pulled his knees closer to his chest and rested his head against the brick wall.

"If you don't want to talk about it we don't have to" she reaffirmed.

"No it's fine I'm just feeling really overwhelmed right now"

"What's happening?"

"Mmm promise me you won't tell anyone, even Ned?"

"Yeah of course"

"Well money's tight right now and my aunt works all the time because of it. I'm just scared about how we're going to hold up"

"I'm sorry to hear that," she said sympathetically and Peter sighed," Is that why you took up the new job?"

"Yeah"

"Has it been helping?"

"Somewhat, but everything is so expensive that it barely seems to make a dent," he says grimly, "And if my aunt found out I was doing this she'd actually kill me"

"I'm sure she'd understand ... after killing you"

"Yeah probably"

"But you can't be too hard on yourself. She's the adult, not you. She's the one with the responsibility of taking care of all the bills. You're doing more than your fair share. So you have to acknowledge that you're doing everything you possibly can that's in your control. Albeit you're doing it illegally. Then again I never was one for American capitalism so more power to you. Seriously though your aunt will know what to do. She's a smart lady."

"I suppose so. It's just frustrating. I can go out every night as Spider-Man and help people easily, but I can't even fix our own financial situation"

"Yeah well like I said, you're doing everything you can that's available to you. You just have to trust other people will do what's right. And your aunt find a way. Just trust her"

They sat in silence for a few moments again as Peter stared at MJ's hand move back and forth shading some part of the page.

"Can I see?" Peter asked and stretched out his arms for the sketchbook. MJ handed the book to him and he laughed at his portrait.

"Do I really look this sad?"

"Yeah you do. A true person in crisis"

"One day you have to sketch me when I'm not in a state of crisis"

"Whatever nerd," she remarked with a smile and Peter grabbed the pencil from her.

"Okay now you sit still. I'm going to draw your portrait"

"Oh no, should I be scared?"

"Of the monstrosity that is my artwork? Oh yeah, fear it. Loathe it," he laughed and began drawing a very shitty portrait of MJ who sat very still and watched him do it.


	7. Chapter 6

Another day, another floor to clean. Peter used his foot to move a chair aside so he could mop underneath the table. He bobbed his head up and down and moved rhythmically to the music playing loudly through his earbuds. MJ had curated a playlist for him with local New York indie rock artists and he was a big fan of all the choices so far. 

Satisfied with the state of the room, Peter tossed the supplies back onto the cart and began wheeling it out the door. High rise cleaning was over for the next month so he was on floor duty. Not that he minded. It was starting to get chilly at night and he much preferred to stay indoors where the rooms were kept at a constant 76 degrees. 

"You work fast Parker," Patty remarked as she flipped through her spreadsheets. Peter always finished much earlier than his coworkers. "Okay. Maria usually does the upper floors but she's out until tomorrow. You can take care of the laboratory on floor 103. Does that sound alright?"

"Yes, perfectly"

"Alright off you go then" 

Peter grabbed his supplies and walked out of the room. Having super strength definitely helped in a role like this. He didn't tire as easily and he hoped with enough good work Patty would reward him with a raise. 

"Hey Friday can I get to the 103rd floor?" Peter asked. 

"Of course Peter. Can I also say you're doing a great job?"

Peter smiled at that, he didn't know an AI could give compliments, "Thanks Friday, I'm just doing my best"

"Well your work is always appreciated. We've arrived at Floor 103" 

The doors slid open to a dimly lit room and Peter struggled to see what was inside.

"Hey Friday can you to raise the lights?"

"Of course Peter" and instantly the room was doused in white artificial light. 

"Wow," he mouthed and stared all around. He'd been in the employee laboratories before but this was something else. The glass windows were tinted grey so it didn't let much sunlight it, but the room was still tinted in a soft red glow from the sunset. Everything was absurdly high tech and there were tools and machinery covering every inch of the building. Peter walked along the aisles trying to take everything in. In the middle of the room two large robotic arms were methodically fabricating a metal part inside a confined plexiglass box and doused the work area in cooling fluid every few passes. Math formulas and equations were scrawled on white boards and the low hum of a 3D printer working in the background could be heard. There were see-through cabinets with beakers, test tubes and rows upon rows of various bottled chemicals. Oh what Peter would do to get his hands on even a few of those things. 

After several minutes of poking around he finally snapped out of his daze and began his work. He cleaned the windows, sanitized the countertops (being extra careful to clean around the experiments), swept the dust, metal shavings and loose hardware off the floor, mopped the tile and was making good time too. With his music playing he wasn't aware of another person entering the room.

Tony rapped his fingers against the table as he waited for his employees to continue with their meeting. They were all debriefing on the status of different parts of the new StarkPhone. 

"These are the test bodies we received from the manufacturer" one of the employees said, handing Tony the plastic casing. He'd forgotten their name. It was something like Blake or Jake or something like that. In all honesty, he didn't like the guy enough to know his name. Was kind of a kiss ass. 

The StarkPhone body was pretty good but he wasn't a fan of how glossy the texture was. Probably would fall from someone's hand easily. 

"This finish, isn't good. I don't think our customers will be too thrilled owning a thousand dollar ice cube. Please tell me there are other version" 

"Actually sir, if you don't mind I have a few" a quieter voice interrupted. He turned her way and she pushed him the folder with the tooling sheets and the mock product. 

"I thought a smooth satin finish would provide a polished feel. They range in a variety of roughness, so I requested a few options ..."

She went quiet as Tony held each backing in his hand and ran his fingers across it. He had to admit, it did feel really nice. It was slightly textured, but the finish was smooth. 

"Not bad, I think this one is the winner," he said pointing at the middle case, "But lets go with different color schemes. I heard minimalist with bright accents is the rave right now"

The lady looked pleased with herself while her coworker locked his jaw. Obviously there was some sort of beef between the two. There can never be too much corporate drama.

Next he went through the batteries which were now 30% smaller and would hold their original charge for up to 2 years. He was pleased with that as well. 

The meeting adjourned and Tony headed back to his lab.

"What's left on the agenda Friday?"

"Ms Potts wanted a status update on the latest StarkPhone ... "

"Let her know I asked the Fab Department to send her the specs"

"Will do sir. You need to review updated documents on the new desktop chipset. There's proposal documents to be signed and Nick Fury is angry with you because -"

"Because I skipped their stupid little tea party, I know. Tell him I have better things to do with my time" 

Tony was hit with the strong scent of disinfectant as soon as the elevator doors opened. Must be the weekly cleaners, he thought, and pressed a button on the wall to start the ventilator. He'd never been a big fan of strong smells. Towards the back of the room he could make out a person mopping the floor whilst using the handle as a fake microphone stand and singing badly as they worked. 

They didn't seem to notice he was there, which didn't bother him. Tony just settled into his desk and checked to see if Friday had finished the simulations he'd run last week. He was analyzing the results when someone interrupted his train of thought.

"H-have you been here this whole time?"

"Who me?" Tony joked looking up at the same kid he'd seen earlier with the mop. Which he immediately realized was a bad idea because the kid looked like he was about ready to loose his marbles.

"I'm sorry I didn't realize anyone was in here, I would've shut up-"

"I just got in. And your singing isn't that bad" 

The kid flushed red. Yeah that didn't help. God he was bad at dealing with people. 

"Here, give me your phone. I'll plug it into the aux."

"Wha-?"

"You know what an aux is right? Or am I that old. To listen to music. Unless you listen to classical music. I can't stand that stuff. My friend plays it all the time and it drives me nuts" 

"No it's just ... underground rock?" 

"Well perfect, that's my favorite genre. Now hand it over" 

Peter scrambled to remove the handphones and pass his battered phone to him. He was a bit embarrassed, but what was he supposed to do. Say no to a billionaire? Of course not. That'd be equivalent to social suicide. 

Tony squinted to read past the cracked screen as he plugged the phone into his computer, "Michelle's Playlist. Is that your girlfriend?"

"No, she's my friend. She's into alt rock and indie artists. I don't know a lot of music so she made the playlist for me. Trying to make me more cultured or something ... sorry I'm rambling" 

"Well it sounds like she has good taste. Friday play 'Michelle's Playlist'" 

"Now playing 'Michelle's Playlist'"

The sound of electric guitar filled the room through the overhead speakers in the ceiling. They both returned to their work and Peter continued to mentally chastise himself for being such a fool. Singing out loud, good riddance. And he was in the same room as Iron Man who currently is listening to the playlist his crush made. His Parker luck couldn't get any worse than this he decided. The universe actually hated him. It had a personal vendetta. He was sure if he asked MJ she'd be able to show how his astrological signs aligned in such a way that he was just doomed to be fucked in every way possible. He channeled his embarrassment into scrubbing the floor so much fervor that the tile turned a new shade of white. 

Tony found the results of the simulation to be very promising. In the summary the chemical compound withstood all force and tensile tests with ease. Now he just needed to recreate it to see if it was true in real world application. 

Being extra careful to not slip on the wet floor he walked to the cabinets and pulled out bottles of various chemicals. After carefully measuring and mixing, the solution began to bubble and froth and a sticky substance began forming and spilling out of the beaker. Tony didn't know the reaction would be so strong. 

With his bare hands he curiously grabbed some of the substance that spilt on the table. Was using your hands ever good lab practice? No of course not. But the simulation also said it wouldn't cause any adverse reaction to skin so he was trusting the math. If he got a chemical burn though he had no one to blame but himself. 

But as he felt the substance on his finger tips it didn't burn at all. It was actually quite cold and incredibly sticky. Speaking of sticky ... Tony tried to lift his hand off the table and found he could go about half a foot before he couldn't lift his hand any further. This stuff was incredibly strong. 

Crap. Was he stuck? 

He pulled harder and found with no amount of force could he remove his hand from the table. Looking through the nearby drawers and upper cabinets he couldn't find anything sharp to cut it with either. 

"It appears your hand is stuck boss"

"No shit Friday"

Tony looked around and spotted the kid behind a benchtop mill. 

"Hey kid!" he shouted and they immediately looked up, "Come over here"

Tony made a mental note to remember their name sometime. 

"Is there something you needed?"

"Yeah kinda in a sticky situation. Can you grab me something sharp?" he made a point by raising his right hand which was stuck in white goo. 

"Hey I've seen this stuff before," Peter remarked. It looked just like his webbing. Actually he would bet everything that it was. All he needed was an acidic ingredient and it'd dissolve immediately.

"You have? Where?" 

"In like ... school. Chemistry class" 

It wasn't a lie. He did make this stuff in chemistry class. Just without his teacher knowing. 

"Do you have something acidic. It'll come off very easily"

"You can check the cabinets. They're to your left. Friday unlock the cabinets please" 

Peter searched and found a tall bottle of acetic acid. Acetic acid on its own is extremely irritating to the skin. But when diluted to a 4-5% concentration it won't do any harm. In fact most vinegars and cosmetics have acetic acid in them. 

Tony watched the kid steadily pour a few drops of liquid into a beaker and fill the remaining amount with water. He evidently knew what he was doing given his amount of control. Peter poured the solution onto the webbing and it started bubbling. In mere seconds it went from sticky to a slimy, watery goo. Tony quickly removed his hand and moved to a sink to wash off the excess. By the time he went back, Peter had already cleaned the remaining solution off the table. 

"What are you using this for?"

"Oh it's just a personal project of mine. Ever heard of Spider-Man?"

"Yeah! He uh lives in my area. Queens. Yeah. See him all the time. Real cool guy"

"Yeah? Well I like his webbing. I couldn't find them anywhere on the market so I thought I'd try and recreate it myself. But you mentioned you saw this in school?" 

"Uh ... yeah I did?"

"Was it some sort of classroom experiment?"

Half-lies, Peter thought to himself, just keep saying half-lies. 

"Well it was kind of an accident? I mixed some random chemicals it got on my hands and I got it stuck in my hair. Took me ages but I found that vinegar removed it. Honestly there isn't anything that vinegar can't remove" 

It seemed as though he wasn't opposed to that explanation. 

"Peter, Patty would like you to know that you have 5 minutes until you need to clock out," Friday interrupted before Mr Stark could ask any more questions.

"Yes, shoot. Thanks Friday," he said and ran to go grab his supplies. Patty was very strict about clocking out on time. 

"Don't get your hand stuck again," Peter shouted and he left in the elevator with only 2 minutes to spare.

Tony stared at where the kid stood just seconds before and was trying to comprehend what just happened. The kid was smart. A lot smarter than he let off. Either he really did have a freak accident and mixed some chemicals together or he knew what he's doing. Tony was more inclined to believe the latter. He should've asked what school he was attending. If he's a chemistry major at college it'd all make sense. Tony could remember the countless number of times he'd made crazy inventions and experiments at MIT. The kid might be the same. Only with more self-control than he'd had back in the day. 

Question remained, why was he mopping floors instead of interning at some company. He could easily get an undergrad spot. Tony decided to leave his questions aside. Kid probably had some deep backstory that he wasn't aware of. He looked at the remaining webbing inside the beaker and dissolved that with more acetic acid. 

Later in the evening he was mindlessly responding to emails when a buzzing sound interrupted his train of thought. Looking down to his right he saw a faint glow from a cracked screen. It was the kid's phone. He hadn't even noticed the kid had forgotten it. Plus the music selection was very good. He'd let the playlist go on for several hours now thinking it was his own.

Somebody was trying to call the phone. The caller id had the name "Man in the Chair (Ned)" with a picture of a boy in a fedora and sunglasses. Probably was some friend trying to locate it. Tony picked it up and swiped the green accept button and held the phone to his ear.

"Hello?"

"Peter oh my god finally you picked up. I've been texting you for ages - Wait who is this? You aren't Peter"

"No I'm not. Peter left his phone at work. Are you his friend?"

"Oh crap really? He must be freaking out right now. And yeah I am. I'm his friend"

"Well tell him he can come by to the lab tomorrow to pick it up if he'd like to. SI is closed but I'll let Friday know to let him in" 

"I'll let him know. Thanks Mr ... Actually I don't think I got your name" 

"Name's Tony"

"Okay, well thanks Tony. Have a goodnight" and the line disconnected. 

Tony placed the phone inside a drawer by his desk and gave it one last look before shutting it. Kid needed a new phone. Maybe he'd let him have one of the hundreds of test phones he had stashed in a box under his bed. Pepper probably wouldn't approve of someone walking around with an unlaunched model though. 

He shook his head and went back to his work to busy his mind. Now that he had the formula for the webbing he could begin the fun part of the suit. Making the web shooting mechanisms. 

Back at his apartment Peter opened his backpack and reached his hand into the compartment where he usually stashed his phone. His heart sunk when he didn't feel it there. Flipping his backpack upside down he dumped its contents onto his bedroom floor. He sifted through the loose papers and books, but couldn't find it.

Crap. He'd lost it. Where did he last have it? 

He didn't use it on the subway because he took a nap instead of reading a book for English. At the beginning of work he had it because he was listening to music. 

Then it hit him. It was still in the lab. He was in such a rush to clock out that he'd left it behind. Tomorrow was the weekend but he didn't have work scheduled. Maybe if he dropped by Friday would let him up to go grab it. He really hoped he could get it soon. If May found out he'd lost it she'd kill him. And they didn't have enough money to afford a brand new phone. 

He logged onto his computer and saw a notification from Ned and opened the desktop messaging app they used. 

Ned: Dude I'm calling your phone and somebody else picked up. 

Ned: Good news you weren't kidnapped. I was afraid the person was going to ask for ransom money. The guy said you left your phone at work and can pick it up tomorrow if you need it. 

Ned: Can we take a trip to SI tomorrow?

Ned: I already asked MJ and she said she's available. 

Ned: I also want to try this new ice cream shop in Manhattan. And don't worry I'm buying

Ned: Please say yes

Ned: When are you going to log on ... I hope you're not Spider-Manning without me. 

Peter: No I'm not.

Peter: I was just casually freaking out for the last 10 minutes because I couldn't find my phone. 

Peter: Did they say where my phone will be?

Ned: The laboratory ?? Whatever that means 

Peter: ... 

Peter: Did you get the name of whoever called you?

Ned: Their name was Tony 

Peter: ...

Peter: ...

Ned: What?

Peter: ... 

Ned: WAIT

Ned: Is it who I THINK IT IS

Peter: ...

Ned: PETER

Ned: ANSWER ME

Ned: WAS THAT TONY STARK

Ned: PETER

Ned: DON'T YOU DARE LEAVE ME ON READ

Peter: ... 

Ned: IT WAS HIM. 

Ned: HOLY 

Ned: PETER IS YOUR PHONE IN IRON MAN'S LAB

Peter: Yeah it is

Ned: AAAAAA

Ned: Okay MJ and I will be at your apartment tomorrow at 9

Peter: I didn't even say I was available??

Ned: Make yourself available

Ned: We're going to SI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Updating two days in a row? Crazy. I was debating whether or not to post this next week or today, but I decided to just post it. School is getting busy again so I'll do my best to keep updating frequently. But in the meantime thanks for reading!


	8. Chapter 7

The thin man tapped his pencil on the table staring at the door he was waiting to open. This person went by the name Sammy. If anyone asked if it was his given name he just gave a toothy smile in response. Promptly right at the 8 the door opened and a lady in a neat pencil skirt and blouse led a tall woman who sported designer clothes and cat eye sunglasses into the room.

Sammy stood up and held his hand across his desk. The lady elegantly removed her sunglasses to reveal her cunning black beady eyes and shook his hand.

"So waste management?" she asked looking around the neat tidy office.

"Precisely," he said, "Not many people's cup of tea, but we get the job done. So what may I help you with?"

The office space was labelled waste management at the front of the building. It had a cute brick wall face and a smiley receptionist who answered at the door. If anyone paid close attention they'd notice that most of their customers weren't the typical people who needed to commission for trash or sewage cleanup. In fact, behind the main doors in the back warehouse and underground basement was the largest underground weapons production on the east coast. And no one suspected a thing. It's crazy how much money there was in this field. Once you met the right people up top, their needs never ceased. And their requests were expensive.

"I need someone to disappear and be replaced," she said cutting straight to the chase with an evil glint in her eye. She slid a manila folder containing documents across the table, "I hear you specialize in advanced tech"

"Yes we do ma'am. We have fulfilled several high-level commissions before," he replied flipping through the pages reading what was requested.

"Then this should be no different"

"I don't know ma'am. The commission your project details would be extremely difficult to make"

"Oh but I'm willing to pay well. I'll give you $50 mil as a security deposit and if you complete the job I'll pay an additional sum that's double that number," she said with a satisfactory smile seeing how captivated the man was at that figure

"So in total -"

"150 million dollars. I think that should be more than sufficient for what I'm asking for"

The man gave her a wide smile that showed his glistening white teeth, "Yes I believe so as well"

So their transaction was complete.

* * *

Nat hovered her fingers over the keyboard watching the output stream on her laptop. It was late in the middle of the night and the only thing illuminating her room was the soft glow of the screen. She hugged the blanket around her arms tighter, more for comfort rather than warmth. A few moments later the background script running notified her of an anonymous user that entered the server. She quickly ran a few commands to search their credentials which she realized were nonexistent. Furiously typing she began pulling up scripts she'd written the day before and running them. A status bar appeared at the bottom of the terminal with the descriptor, "Intercepting data ...". It slowly finished its job and Nat crossed her fingers she'd run it in time.

Minutes later the anonymous user logged off the server and the script terminated.

"Retrieved 1204kb of Transferred Data — Saved to ~/tmp/"

Nat started decrypting the data she'd mined. After an hour of running scripts her code finally ran and outputted a single sentence in an email format.

(**null is a word for "empty" or "nonexistent" in programming jargon)

_"Time: 3:43 AM Sender: null Receiver: null_

_Subject: null_

_Body: 'Ever considered our sources at Stark Industries?' "_

Natasha scrambled out of her bed to grab her phone on her desk. She called the first number "Fury" with a very angry looking man in the contact photo. After the second ring they finally picked up.

"Romanoff, you better have a damn good reason-"

"I intercepted it," she interrupted, "I think you're right. Something is up. There's discussion about Stark Industries now and if that's the case this can't be good"

There was a long pause at the other end and then finally a long sigh.

"Alright. Send me the information you collected. Let me know if anything else comes up"

The call ended with a soft beep and Nat put the phone back to its spot on the desk. Looking out the window she could see the sky starting to turn a hue of deep blue as morning grew nearer. After shutting the curtains she climbed back into bed waiting for a response to the anonymous email in the same server.

* * *

At 9 am promptly there was a loud knock at the front of their apartment door.

"Who is it?" May called from her bedroom and Peter quickly ran to unlock the door. His friends as they'd said the night before stood expectantly outside.

"Hey guys," he said and swung the door wide open for them to come inside, "It's just Ned and MJ Aunt May"

"Really, this early?"

"We have a school project to work on together," MJ said and glanced at Peter to make sure he understood the alibi. It wasn't exactly a lie, they did have an English presentation due in a month, but Peter always started his homework night before no matter the size.

"Well why don't you two stay for breakfast?" Aunt May said as she walked out from her room. Her hair was wrapped in a towel as she'd just finished taking a shower and was sporting her favorite purple bathrobe.

"Oh we ate just before we left," Ned said quickly. Although they loved Aunt May her cooking was something to be avoided at all costs.

"Are you sure? Peter have you at least eaten anything?"

"I ate when I woke up"

He grabbed his backpack and stuffed some books in it to make it appear as though he was off to do work.

"Alright, well be back by 3 please. I have some things planned for us to do tonight"

"I'll be back by then"

Peter gave her a hug and May slipped a $20 in his jacket pocket.

"Go treat yourself. You've been working too hard," she ruffled his hair and before he could protest she turned around to the other two waiting at the door, "And you two have some fun too okay. You all need a break"

Peter joined his friends outside the door.

"Well enjoy yourselves. Please be back by 3 Peter"

"I will, bye Aunt May"

The apartment door shut and soon the three teens were running down the hall taking the stairs down two steps at a time, excited for the day's adventure.

After exiting the subway car in downtown Manhattan they felt the unpleasant hot, humid city air.

"When is winter coming? I can't take this heat anymore," Peter said to his friends as they tried to walk in the shade to avoid the sun.

"Well this should be the last heat wave of the year," MJ said, "And besides we're getting ice cream after this. It's worth the suffering"

"Guys I can see the tower," Ned squealed and pointed to the tall high rise in the sky, "Do you think Iron Man will be there"

"Probably not," MJ said matter-of-factly before Peter could get any ideas, "I mean if you were a billionaire would you just lock yourself up at home on a Saturday?"

* * *

"Boss"

Tony continued screwing a small metal plate, unaware that his AI was calling for his attention.

"Boss"

No response.

"ANTHONY EDWARD STARK"

That got his attention alright. He moved so quickly that his arm knocked a container of screws all over the table.

"Really Friday?" he groaned, gathering all the loose hardware and putting it back into its organizer.

"I'm sorry, but I needed to get your attention. Director Fury is on his way up,"

"Who? You did not just say that- Why did you let him in?"

"He has admin privilege's and that includes access into SI whenever he wishes"

"Now I wonder what idiot gave him that ... "

"You did"

"I KNOW Friday. It was rhetorical. Can you tell him to leave? Kind of busy right now"

"I believe asking him to leave would only anger him more. I advise you look presentable, he will be arriving in 30 seconds"

Presentable? Tony was wearing the same jeans and shirt from yesterday and he looked as though he hadn't slept all night - which he hadn't. Nightmares are a fickle thing.

He quickly wiped his grease stained hands on a rag which only made them look worse. Before he could do anything else to fix his disastrous appearance a very tall angry man marched in through the sliding doors.

Fury gave him a once over and rolled his eyes in plain disgust.

"Good morning?" Tony offered.

"You cost me my weekend flying down here!" Fury yelled and Tony raised his hands.

"Could've just called me-"

"You know damn well you haven't answered any of my calls"

"Really? Oops. Well I can't imagine you were going to do anything fun anyways"

"I was going to go play golf thank you very much. I had very good reservations too" Fury said curtly.

"You? You play golf?" Tony squinted and made a show of pointing his finger at the disgruntled man, "See I was entertaining the idea of maybe killing secret assassins on the dl, but okay. Golf. Golf it is. Unless is golf a code word for something I don't know-"

"It's just golf Stark. Now will you just shut the hell up and let me speak"

"I'll consider it-"

"Well this ain't for your consideration. If you'd attended any of the meetings last month you'd know there's a potential-"

"... organization producing and selling illegal alien-tech weapons with a side of for hire hit men. I know. I kind of monitor all your conversations at the Compound". That he did. The benefit of building your own secured safe house is having backdoor access to everything. And the other Avengers couldn't complain. They were all living there rent free.

Fury just stared at the so-called superhero and felt himself going over his limit. He didn't get paid enough to babysit all these grown adults. He took a deep breath to calm himself.

"Well great I don't need to debrief you. Now I need to know if there's anything else you may know about the situation"

“No, not much. There's a very big market for the Chitauri energy cores, but not a high volume circulating in the public and the weapons that do emerge are typically in small gang fights. The majority of the cores are all secured by Damage Control"

"Which you own"

"Doesn't mean I do anything. I'm just a major shareholder"

"Which is concerning to me"

"Look I don't know what you want me to do. I can send a group to go lockdown the main storage bunker we have in DC, but that's about it. Your perps would probably have an easier time breaking into the pentagon than getting in there," Tony was getting a bit ticked off. Evidently Fury knew all this and probably more, but was playing the same mental game he always did, "Look I haven't purchased or sold weapons since 2008. Very out of tune in that area. Why come all the way here to talk to me? Romanoff is pretty good at this stuff"

Taking a seat in Tony's desk chair, propping up his legs on the table, Fury crossed his arms and looked dead into Tony's eyes.

"Agent Romanoff uncovered a series of emails relaying this same underground group now has an interest in your company's tech"

"My company?"

"Yes. Don't make me repeat myself"

Fury pulled a tablet from his coat and opened it. The screen projected a hologram with a graphical layout of email messages.

"Last week at 300 hours there was discussion of new weapons distribution, but the conversation suddenly changed to a new production"

Tony read the emails and flipped to the next ones with just a swipe of his finger.

_"New commission came in."_

_"Where are the details?"_

_"Same place"_

_"Is it viable?"_

_"For $150 million the boss needs it to be."_

_"Have you thought of asking Vulture?"_

_"This is too high tech for them. We need new sources"_

_"Ever considered our sources at Stark Industries?"_

_"Are they credible?"_

_"Very"_

_"Boss likes the idea"_

Tony tried to keep a straight face. Shit. This was news.

"Now where does your company fit into that?"

* * *

"So what do we do?" Ned whispered as they stared at the doors of SI. No one was inside and there wasn't even a security guard on the premise like the other neighboring buildings.

"I don't know," Peter said looking around. A few people glanced at the three teenagers standing awkwardly at the front of the door, but most passed by without noticing.

"Just open it," MJ said and Peter followed her command. He pushed the door and it opened with ease. The inside lights flickered on.

"Good afternoon Mr Parker," a familiar voice echoed. His friends looked around trying to find the owner of the voice, but didn't see anything.

"Hi Friday," Peter said as they shuffled inside.

"I am detecting two other acquaintances. Please hold while I perform security scans"

His two friends stood still after hearing their names identified by the unbodied voice.

"Nothing detected. You are allowed to wait in the bottom floor lobby. Personnel has been notified of your arrival"

"Whoa who are you," Ned called out abruptly.

"My name is F.R.I.D.A.Y. I am Stark Industries personal AI," the voice echoed and Ned grinned.

"That's so cool"

"A meeting is taking place in the laboratory currently. Once it's over your phone will be retrieved. In the meantime you'll have to wait"

* * *

Once Fury finally left more questions had emerged rather than answers. Tony's head was reeling thinking what the implications of that message could mean.

What were they trying to steal?

It couldn't be anything commercially available to the public. There'd be no need to have an insider for those kinds of products. So consumer electronics were out of the picture. This group was based on the east coast so that eliminated their aerospace, military and automotive sectors which were located on the west. The only areas that remained were their energy, research and weapons.

Were they stupid enough to go after Avenger's weapons? They could be.

"Friday I want you to run new extensive background checks on all our employees, shareholders and subsidiaries. And I want details of all current projects from our east coast subsidiaries"

"Did I mishear? You said all?"

"Yes all of them"

"That is around 1.2 million individuals sir"

"Yes and I want them all checked"

"This will take a long time to compute"

"What's the estimated runtime?"

"Projects can be acquired in a few hours, but it will take 3 weeks for extensive background checks"

_Shit that's far too long._

"Can we reduce that somehow?"

"If we dedicate one of the California supercomputers on the network it can cut it down by a week"

"Done, do that”

He thought after all these years his company would be in the clear, but of course that wasn’t the case. So Friday’s systems would need updating and he should send more security to all their branches in case of an attack. Probably tell Pepper about this too. She was going to hate him even more after she heard this-

“Boss?”

“What?” he broke out of his daze.

“Peter Parker is waiting in the lobby”

"Peter who?"

"The employee that left their phone in your office yesterday. You adjusted my protocols to let them into the building. He and his friends have been waiting for the last half hour"

"Friends?"

"Two acquaintances. A boy and a girl. I'm assuming schoolmates based on their banter. I performed the usual security scan and neither showed any risks"

Tony nodded and made his way to his desk. He grabbed it out of the drawer.

“Was there any malware on the phone Friday?” Couldn't be too careful.

“No there was not. I encountered nothing out of the ordinary except outdated software”

He let out a sigh he didn’t know he was holding in.

"Alright well tell them to come up"

"There is Avengers-level weaponry present. I am not allowed to override that protocol"

Tony looked around the lab. He spent the whole night working on projects and there were materials and tools strewn everywhere in the room. A new version of a miniaturized web-shooter design laid mostly complete on a table top and the new weapons for the Avengers were lying around half-made. Natasha's Widow Bites were half-dangling precariously off the side of the table.

"Boss I'm still awaiting a response"

"Yeah just tell them to stay put," he said rubbing his eyes. Might as well leave the lab for once. He didn't do that nearly enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know what you think about the pace of the story so far. I tend to draw out parts that might be unnecessarily long and if you'd prefer I cut to the more exciting stuff quicker instead of writing a slow burn please lmk :)


	9. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter is all FILLER, but it's necessary. It'll make sense later. And sorry my posts are so infrequent. School is literally kicking my ass <3

"Your phone is being retrieved. It will arrive shortly," the friendly voice echoed through the building. Ned turned his head around in awe while MJ flipped to the next page in her book. Currently the three friends were lounging in the plush lobby chairs. MJ was reading and Peter was sharing an earbud with Ned to watch a YouTube video.

"Dude that's so cool," Ned whispered and Peter grinned.

"Right?"

"Why are we whispering?" MJ asked in the same hushed tone.

"I don't know, it just seems appropriate," Ned said and continued to look around, the video long forgotten.

Only moments later the trio heard the sound of doors opening followed by footsteps on the glossy wood floors. They turned in the direction of the noise and saw a tall, thin man dressed in a simple band t-shirt and jeans with a signature goatee approaching them.

"Mr Parker, I believe this is yours," the man said extending his hand with the prized possession.

"Thank you so much and uh sorry about that," Peter said quickly and retrieved his phone.

"And you two..."

"We're his friends"

"I see. You three go to college together? Let me guess, Columbia"

"City college actually,” MJ lied without even batting an eyelash, “It's free for us. I believe you co-sponsored the bill". The two boys glanced at her and nodded more out of disbelief than agreement.

"Yes I did. Nice to see it's going to good use. And your name is?"

"Michelle, but MJ is preferred"

"Michelle, would she happen to be the same person?" he glanced to his right at Peter.

"Yeah ... yeah it would be"

"Well young miss you have a very good taste in music"

MJ tilted her head in confusion, "Um thanks?"

"I was ... playing your playlist," Peter tried explaining.

"And he sang. Not sure I'd recommend listening that, but the music was very good. Now, I have business to attend to but it was nice meeting you all. Try and convince your friends to also join Stark Industries Mr. Parker. We're always hiring". He sent them off with a smile and proceeded to return to his more pressing matters.

"Alright Friday lets start updating our security protocols"

* * *

"That was fucking sick! Also that was so smooth MJ," Ned exclaimed as the three walked outside.

"Yeah well I totally saved Peter's ass back there," she said nonchalantly, "And what was that with my music?"

"Well I got passed the aux and I put on your playlist"

"You're joking"

"Nah I'm not"

"Wait, but weren't you in Tony Stark's private lab," Ned whisper-screamed. Peter nodded and he let out a squeal.

"Of all the things you could play, why my playlist?" MJ sighed.

"I was listening to it?"

"You actually listened to it?"

"Yeah! It was really good too"

MJ seemed surprised. She hadn't expected her friend to actually listen to the music she'd recommended. It was a bit obscure and underground to begin with, which wasn't the most appealing for some.

"Well that's cool. Ned where is this ice cream place you were raving about. I'm starving. I want a sandwich too"

"It's just a few blocks away," Ned said showing the location on his phone.

"That's not that far," Peter began to break out into a job, "C'mon I'll race you guys"

MJ took the challenge and sprinted past him.

"You know how unfair this is right? Peter can run faster than Captain America. I timed it too!" but he still joined his friends as they jaywalked through several streets and weaved through the crowds.

* * *

May's idea for their Saturday night was ordering take out and catching up over the television. Peter was a bit taken aback by all the food she'd ordered, but he didn't make any complaints. They sat on the couch and ate as they watched random news on the TV. The channel broadcasted a report on a recently deceased man. Peter had never heard his name before but he must've been rich just from looking at the slideshow of the family photographs.

"According to family members Osman fell off his yacht and unfortunately by the time anyone noticed he'd already passed. Law enforcement does not believe any foul play was involved and his son is now undergoing the procedure to inherit the family assets"

"That's too bad," May said through a bite of salad.

"Do you know who he is?"

"He's a big investor. Probably owned like half of Wall Street. See that's why you need to be careful when you're around the water. No amount of money can save you from drowning"

"But I can swim May"

"Still," she said with a huff and put more food on his plate, "And you need to eat more. You look like a string bean lately"

"What's wrong with being a string bean?"

"Nothing at all, but you can't starve yourself either. So how's school going?"

"Pretty good. How's work?"

"Oh god so busy. I have a full schedule next week and I'm doing overtime"

"That's so much. Can't you get a job somewhere else?"

"I could, but then I'd loose seniority. And remember that one old cranky lady I work for? People says she's retiring soon, so I might be able to get her position as a supervisor. Plus it pays better"

"Are we doing okay May?" he asked seriously, "Like financially and all"

"Yes we're doing fine. To be completely honest, it's a bit tight but I don't want you to worry about it at all. Just carry on as you usually do and leave the worrying to me," she said with a confident smile, "Oh and I've been meaning to ask you this, but what do you want to do on your birthday? It's in a week and a half"

Peter wanted to talk more about it, but she was obviously trying to change the subject. And honestly he'd forgotten his birthday was even coming. Between juggling school, a secret job and an even more secret vigilante side hustle he hadn't really had time to think about it.

"Oh I don't know, probably just have Ned and MJ over like I usually do"

"You don't want to have a party?"

"Not really"

"You're not missing out on the high school experience right? Parties, getting secretly drunk behind my back like all teenagers do, testing the limits"

"May you know I'd never do any of those things"

"Does it make me a bad parent to encourage bad behaviour?"

"Maybe?"

"Hm," she tapped her chin, "Well it wouldn't matter anyways because I know you'd never do anything behind my back"

Peter gave a tight laugh in response, "Yeah totally. Would never dream of it"

* * *

Peter ran sprinted out the subway doors as fast as he could once they opened. He didn't care that he got a few weird stares as he ran inhumanely fast through the halls of Grand Central. All he could think of was not being late for work. Mr. Harrington asked him to wait after school to question why he wasn't coming to Academic Decathlon anymore and that costed him 20 precious minutes.

"Hey! Where's your badge?" a stout man shouted at him when he ran through the door. As Peter continued to half jog backwards as he pulled his ID from his pocket.

"Here!"

"Keep your badge on at all times or I'll have you removed!" they shouted, but Peter was already running towards the elevators and managed to slide in between the closing doors.

"Phew," Peter gasped as the elevator went up.

"Did Happy get you?" said a man in a suit with his badge hanging from a lanyard. In dark blue text at the bottom it said he was in 'Marketing'.

"Is that who that guy was?"

"Yup. They're ramping up security again for some reason. Nobody exactly knows why"

* * *

Bruce tried opening the door, but to no avail. Friday's systems were acting up and the areas he usually had access to refused to let him in. This was already the third occurrence today.

"Friday, can you let me in? It's Bruce," he called out to the AI and he tried to open the locked door again but to no avail.

"I'm sorry Dr. Banner but you're not listed under the authorized personnel that can access this area. Would you like me to call someone to assist you?"

"Yes please," he huffed.

"They'll be with you shortly"

Bruce stood by the locked doors and waited around. The only other people on this floor were the few medical staff in their offices. Maybe they had clearance.

He entered a doctor's office and knocked on the metal frame of the door to get their attention, "Excuse me do you have clearance for opening those doors?"

The lady in the white lab coat shook her head, "Sorry even I'm locked out. I'm waiting for my credentials to get put into the system. It's a bit of a mess right now. Would you like me to call someone to help you?"

"No someone's already coming, but thanks," he said and left her to continue her work.

As he exited the doorway a person passed by mopping the floors and Bruce stepped out of their way so they could do their work.

"Excuse me, but aren't you Dr Banner?" the cleaning person asked and Bruce turned around in surprise.

"Um ... yeah, that's me. Did you need something?" he responded softly and gave a small smile.

"No I just wanted to say hi. Your work is like totally rad, not that I understand a lot of it, but it's really cool to read about"

Bruce was surprised. Not many people knew of his work unless they were deeply engrossed in the academia field. Plus they were inside Stark Industries. Most people were intrigued by Tony's inventions rather than Banner's theoretical papers. But this kid was quite the anomaly.

"Yeah? You must like science then. Not too many people are familiar with my work"

"I guess so? It's the only subject that's ever really appealed to me"

"Well it's a great field to get into"

"Attention, security has been temporarily uplifted on this floor," Friday announced, "Please locate necessary rooms. In ten minutes protocols will be reinstated"

There was a mad rush of various workers leaving their offices and opening the now unlocked doors to access whatever they'd been waiting on. Peter continued working and Bruce held the door open as the last doctor walked through.

"Do you need to come in? They're locking everything down again soon"

"Yeah actually I do"

Peter grabbed his supplies and soon the two walked down the hallway in silence. It was quite a nice area, he'd never been there before. The walls were painted a warm cream color and the doors all had a wood finish. Some people had placed little jars of candy on bookshelves and photographs of awards and head employees hung on the wall.

"So do you always work here?"

"Usually I do. Sometimes I'm needed elsewhere, but for the most part I do my research here"

"That's awesome. What do you work on exactly?"

"Quite a few things. I'm not allowed to talk about most of it, but it's mostly been biochemical and medical research"

"That just sounds impressive in itself. I really hope I can do something big like that someday"

"Well I'm sure you can. You don't need to create crazy inventions to make an impact"

Peter reflected on that comment. When it was put that way, it made a lot of sense.

* * *


End file.
